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James wakes up eleven minutes before his alarm, like he does everyday. Next to him Teddy’s still asleep, will be until the snooze button’s been knocked into submission and the smell of coffee filling the flat becomes too tempting even though it means he’ll have to rush to gather up the books and essays scattered across the table before his first class of the day.
James showers quickly, awkwardly shrugging on his robes as he takes the morning paper from Eros and scanning the front page as he starts a pot of coffee. There’s a missing child and a robbery at Fontain’s Potions. Unrelated. Hidden further between the lines of ink there’s a few words about intercepted owls that catch his attention and he makes a mental note to bring it up to his boss later, see if it could be anything.
The sound of the shower starting up again lets him know that Teddy’s finally surfaced, and he grabs his wand to heat up the coffee, accio-ing a mug with a lazy flick of his wrist. He’s going to be late if he doesn’t leave now but he can’t bring himself to go before Teddy stumbles into the kitchen, bleary eyed, and he’s able to grab a quick kiss to last him through the day.
+
The important things in James Potter’s life can all be counted on one hand: Teddy, his family, Teddy, his work, and Teddy. Before work it was Quidditch, but otherwise the same things have applied since he was sixteen years old and first building up the courage to kiss his awesome, older best friend behind Grandma Molly’s garden shed.
Despite all of his neurosis, it had been easy. Teddy had kissed him back, laughing against his lips like he was finally letting James in on a secret he’d been harbouring for years, and James’ world had slotted into place with solid certainty.
+
“You know,” Grandma Molly says, passing him the bowl of potatoes, “Lucinda Hermat’s daughter’s just moved to London. She’s got a job at St Mungo’s.”
James has no idea who Lucinda Hermat is, let alone her daughter, so he just smiles and reaches for another Yorkshire Pudding, revelling in the opportunity to have a meal that doesn’t come from the Ministry cafeteria and hoping that he can still get the pile of reports on his desk finished before he goes home.
Grandma Molly pats his hand. “She’s very pretty,” she says. “I told her she should look you up. Maybe you could take her out for lunch, show her around.”
“Grandma,” James sighs, resisting the urge to roll his eyes, because she does this every time. “Stop it.”
“Fine,” she says. “Fine.”
She doesn’t look happy about it, but then she never does.
+
James’ family were great people. Heroes in fact, according to the old newspaper clippings he’d found as a child in the draw next to his parents’ bed and the words of his Defence Against the Dark Arts professor who couldn’t ever seem to grade him below an E even when he forgot to hand in his homework entirely. They were loving and generous and had enough friends to fill Grandma Molly’s back garden and more besides, and James had always thought he could talk to them about anything.
At sixteen he’d realised that wasn’t exactly true.
It wasn’t the gay thing; Al had arrived home from Hogwarts at twelve years old clutching the hand of Scorpius Malfoy like he was the very best thing in the universe and his parents momentary surprise had shifted into amusement the minute they’d realised that Scorpius was looking at their son the same way.
“It’s just,” his dad had said, frowning slightly and waving his hand. “Teddy’s your godbrother.”
“Yes,” James had replied. “But that just makes him family in the same way Aunt Luna’s family. We’re not actually related.”
“No,” his dad said, “but still.”
James had thought that maybe they just needed time; he and Teddy were still as welcome as ever, still doted upon at every turn, everyone just chose to ignore the fact that they were falling in love.
Five years later he’s still hoping.
+
“I just hired a new intern,” his mum says, arm still wrapped around Al’s shoulders like she can’t bear to let her baby go now she’s got him back again. “Jeremy. He’s a year or two older than you, I think.”
James hums distractedly and scans through the menu, half-heartedly kicking at Al’s shin just because he can and moving his leg out the way before Al can retaliate.
“He’s bisexual,” his mum says, happily.
“Please tell me you’re kidding,” Al says, and James looks up in time to catch the incredulous glare he’s shooting their parents. “You’re not still trying to set James up, are you?”
“Of course not,” his dad says, “but it’s always nice to have friends.”
“Right,” Al says, “sure. Friends.”
Lily snorts from where she’s ripping up her serviette into little squares.
“You know,” she says, catching James’ eye, “if you were to tell them all about the incredible sex you and Teddy have every night they might finally catch on.”
“Lily!” their mum says, and James can feel the heat climbing up his neck as Al laughs.
“Nah,” Al says, “that’s me and Score. Teddy and James work, they’re probably lucky if they can find the time and energy to have at it at the weekends.”
James throws a bread roll at his brother’s head instead of agreeing.
+
“I just don’t understand why you don’t get angry,” Al had said once, home from Hogwarts for the holidays, his own boyfriend absent for a change, dragged away on a family trip to Italy despite both boys’ protests.
“Because it wouldn’t help,” James had said, staring into his cup of tea. “Teddy and I know that we’re in love, and that’s all that matters in the end.”
Al had nodded but he didn’t believe him. James didn’t even believe himself.
+
“You look tired,” Teddy says, running the pads of his fingers gently over the nape of his neck, and James relaxes into the touch, dropping his head onto Teddy’s shoulder and breathing in the smell of books and wax and ink.
“Long day,” he says. “How about you?”
“It was okay,” Teddy says. “My seventh years are freaking out about their NEWTS and I had a first year who thought she was there to study Astrology but other than that it was fine.”
James curls his fingers over Teddy’s knee and traces the line of his worn jeans, the ones Aunt Hermione bought him years ago that Teddy loves, feeling the seam pressing into his fingertips.
“We should go away,” James says eventually, and Teddy hums in response.
“Sure,” he says, “where?”
James shrugs. “I don’t know,” he says. “Anywhere. Somewhere it’s just us.”
“Okay,” Teddy says, and James wonders how he always makes everything seem so easy, like they really can just pick up and go, lock themselves away in a cabin somewhere and not have to think about jobs and family and responsibilities. How he makes James believe it’s that easy, too.
“Next weekend,” James says. “We’ll rent a cottage somewhere.”
Teddy presses a smile against James’ hair, tangling their fingers together in his lap.
“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, let’s do that.”
+
James fell in love with Teddy two weeks before he turned seventeen, four months after their first kiss behind the garden shed. There hadn’t been fireworks or lightbulbs switching on behind his eyes, but he had known with absolute certainty that Teddy was the only person he wanted to kiss for the rest of his life.
Five years later he still feels the stupid butterflies in his chest, still craves late night touches on the sofa when they’ve just enough energy left in them and lazy Sunday mornings in bed when they’ve all the energy in the world. Teddy is still just as beautiful, still makes James think that anything is possible as long as they face it together, and still smiles at him like they’re sharing some unspoken secret the rest of the world will never know.
James’ family may not understand it, may spend the rest of his life trying to set him up with the miscellaneous strangers who cross their paths and have nothing to offer except not being Teddy, and sometimes it hurts because they should be able to see that he’s happy, be able to see that the only thing that separates he and Teddy from their own relationships born from teenage feelings is a band of gold that James will one day build up the courage to buy. He wishes they’d open their eyes and see his crazy, hectic life for the state of domestic bliss it really is, but if they never do then that doesn’t matter, not really, because he knows that they’re happy, that what they have works, and most of all he knows that Teddy is still the only person he wants to kiss for the rest of his life.